On this day in 1986, Newsweek magazine published an article detailing the economic problems in Lone Star, Texas, in southern Morris County. The site was probably settled around the time of the Civil...(Read More)

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TROTTER, IDE PEEBLES

TROTTER, IDE PEEBLES (1895–1973). Ide P. Trotter, agronomist, was born on December 12, 1895, in Brownsville, Tennessee, to Isham Patten and Susie (Eager) Trotter. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Mississippi College in 1915 and a bachelor of science degree in agriculture in 1918 and a master of science degree in agronomy in 1921 from Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical. In 1933 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. From 1923 to 1936 Trotter served the Missouri College of Agriculture as extension agronomist and in 1933 was a specialist in charge of the Federal Cotton Plow-Up program. He also served as agronomy advisor to the administrator of the United States Department of Agriculture. From 1935 to 1936 he served as agronomy advisor to the American Agricultural Association and Soil Conservation program. During World War I he served as director of agriculture at U.S. Army Base Hospital Camp Travis and Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Trotter became chairman of the agronomy department at Texas A&M University in 1936 and remained until 1944. In 1938 he was a fellow to the American Society of Agronomy, and from 1937 to 1938 he served as the chairman of the crops section. From 1944 to 1949 he served as the sixth director of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service of Texas A&M. It was at that time that he established many scholarships with the Sears-Roebuck and other foundations for extension personnel who wanted to pursue graduate studies. In 1948 he was on leave from Texas A&M to serve as an agricultural economist for the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations. From 1949 until his retirement he served as dean of the graduate school and a consultant on personnel and professional improvement. Trotter served as consulting crops editor for the Journal of American Society of Agronomy from 1940 to 1945. He was also the author of numerous agricultural bulletins, pamphlets, and periodical articles. He was also a member of the International Society of Soil Sciences, the Texas Agricultural Workers Association, the Texas Academy of Scienceqv, the Soil Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy, and the American Association of University Professors. He was active in the Rotary Club and the Baptist Church, as well as many fraternities including the Masons. After his retirement in 1960 he spent two years in India at Orissa University in a program funded by the University of Missouri to help India pattern their agriculture and technology after that of the United States. Trotter married Lena Ann Breeze on June 25, 1930. They had two children. He spent the rest of his life touring the world until he died in Bryan, Texas, on April 24, 1973.